Ding Dong the SCO is Dead

It's Over. Or is it?

March 30, 2010

By
Sean Michael Kerner

After nearly seven long years of legal maneuvering and multiple court decisions, a key decision has been made in the case of SCO versus Novell on the issue of which company owns the Unix System V copyrights and patents.

The jury decision from the District Court of Utah ruled in favor of Novell, which could serve to end SCO's legal actions against Novell, IBM and the broader Linux community.

"Novell is very pleased with the jury�s decision confirming Novell�s ownership of the Unix copyrights, which SCO had asserted to own in its attack on Linux," Novell spokesman Ian Bruce said in a blog post. "Novell remains committed to promoting Linux, including by defending Linux on the intellectual property front. This decision is good news for Novell, for Linux, and for the open source community."

SCO began its claim against Novell in May 2003, arguing that when Novell sold Unix System V to SCO in 1995 that the transaction also involved giving it the copyrights and patents -- but Novell disagreed. Favorably resolving the issue of who owns the Unix copyrights and patent was critical for SCO...